Patrick Stewart Defends X-Men: The Last Stand

Beast should have been in the first X-Men movie.

Like Cyclops and Jean Grey, Hank McCoy was one of the founding members of the team. Also like them, but unlike fellow founders Iceman and Angel, he remained an integral part of every era of the heroes. This includes the 1990s animated series, which influenced the 2000 X-Men film (thanks, in part, to an idiotic disregard for the comics).

To celebrate the life of Sir Patrick Stewart, Polygon is republishing this tribute to his seminal performance as Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men movie franchise.

He was in the script for a long time too. “Most of the drafts I worked on had Beast in the film, and we were actually going to creature effects houses, like Jim Henson and Rick Baker and all those, and seeing their Beast tests,” screenwriter David Hayter told Den of Geek in 2020.

The problem was the film’s $75 million budget. The filmmakers could not afford the character’s biggest action scene, which would have seen Beast swinging around the Statue of Liberty. To save money, they initially decided to have the character break his leg before the final battle with Magneto. Eventually, the decision was made to remove the character altogether rather than shortchange him. Beast was cut.

With a tight script featuring a number of new characters, including another blue mutant in Nightcrawler, there was no space to introduce Beast in X2, so he was benched again. Finally, 20 years ago, Beast appeared in the third film, X-Men: The Last Stand, featuring a flawless casting choice.

What X-Men: The Last Stand got right

When Beast is introduced a few minutes into X-Men: The Last Stand, he wears a suit and quietly reads an issue of Scientific American while sticking to the ceiling of his White House office by his feet. Beast is summoned for a meeting with the president, and out of his blue, furry face comes the voice of Kelsey Grammer.

In an instant, the audience understands Beast. While the setting, attire, magazine choice, and practical effects makeup play a supporting role in communicating the personality, Grammer’s commanding presence immediately establishes Beast as the intellectual mutant authority.

At the time, Grammer was known for playing the eloquent, erudite therapist Frasier Crane on Cheers and Frasier, two of the best sitcoms ever made. Grammer had played Frasier for 20 years at that point, and his portrayal of Beast was similar, minus a bit of Frasier’s self-importance and plus a bit of Beast’s fighting ability.

That approach created a shorthand with the audience to help them grasp Beast instantly. Beast already had that personality from the comic books and cartoon show. By finding the actor who could communicate that personality more effectively than anyone else at the time, the movie made up for lost time from the first two X-Men films. The film also made it clear that Beast had been a member of the X-Men before Logan joined in the first movie, but he had since taken a diplomatic role for mutant rights. This gave the character history with the team and made him more than just a new X-Man.

Throughout the rest of The Last Stand, Grammer’s Beast received a solid amount of screentime. He played a key role in the mutant cure subplot. As a big blue furry outcast, he made clear why some mutants might refuse the burden of carrying the X-Gene. He also delivered the final blow on Magneto, played by Sir Ian McKellen, when he injected him with the mutant cure to depower the archvillain.

Beast kept showing up in X-Men movies

After the failure of both X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Fox’s X-Men films were rebooted with the prequel X-Men: First Class, which cast Nicholas Hoult as a younger Beast. This meant Grammer’s first outing as Beast seemed to be his last.

Over the next two decades, Grammer secured two memorable cameos as Beast. The first came at the end of 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past. After Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman, fixed the past, Beast passed Wolverine in the hallway and greeted him. Then, in a post-credits scene in 2023’s The Marvels, Beast informs Monica Rambeau, played by Teyonah Parris, that she has been transported to a different dimension.

That latter cameo guaranteed Grammer’s return as Beast in at least one future film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We already know that he will appear in Avengers: Doomsday, and he may stick around for Avengers: Secret Wars too. After that, Marvel is expected to reboot the X-Men with a younger cast.

While the absence of this character in the first two X-Men movies remains disappointing, more of him is coming soon. As far as superhero casting choices go, Grammer matches Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine, and he will finally get a chance to show it.

X-Men: The Last Stand is streaming now on Disney Plus.

Source: Polygon